Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!unido!sbsvax!greim From: greim@sbsvax.UUCP (Michael Greim) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: computer follies Message-ID: <629@sbsvax.UUCP> Date: 3 Oct 88 10:44:34 GMT References: <1109@idec.stc.co.uk> <1860004@otter.hple.hp.com> <2135@stpstn.UUCP> <625@unisv.SV.UNISYS.COM> Organization: Universitaet des Saarlandes, Saarbruecken, West Germany Lines: 34 Some years ago a friend of mine was coaching (monitoring?, you know what I mean, I hope) a programminig course for "advanced beginners". There were groups set up, where each member should write a module for a not-so-small system. When the parts where fitted together naturally there were a number of nasty bugs. So the groups started debugging... One group came and said they could not find the error, if my friend could help them. Ok. So together they looked at the code, inserted test commands, you know the stuff. After several days they had it narrowed down to one statement, like (this is pascal) if a = true then ... My friend pointed out, that this were nonsense. It was better to write if a then ... After they had changed it, the program behaved differently, though still not correctly. Only then did he take a look at the declaration section of the module, where he found : const true=false; false=true; -mg -- email : greim@sbsvax.informatik.uni-saarland.dbp.de (some mailers might not like this. Then use greim@sbsvax.uucp) or : ...!uunet!unido!sbsvax!greim voice : +49 681 302 2434 snail : Michael Greim, Universitaet des Saarlandes, FB 10 - Informatik, Bau 36, Im Stadtwald 15, D-6600 Saarbruecken 11, West Germany # include